Renewing an American passport; not as easy in Egypt as in Belgium

Today we went to the American Embassy in Cairo to get William’s passport renewed. We renewed August’s at the American embassy in Brussels before we came to Egypt last year so we pretty much knew what to expect – or so we thought! We had printed out the application form and filled it out, prepared the $82 fee, got passport pictures taken, and made sure we had the birth certificate at hand.

Since this was our first visit to the American embassy we were prepared to rely on the map to get us there, but pretty soon it became obvious where we had to go. The entire block around the embassy was sealed off, and surrounding the building were large groups of police, blinking police- and security cars, and large men in suits wearing ear pieces and official looking badges.

As we approached the consulate entrance we saw a huge line winding along the side building and prepared ourselves and the boys to wait. Soon a security guard spotted us however, and when he learned that we were citizens, he hurried us past the line through a second door. It was not very busy inside, and soon we got to hand a clerk our documents. In Belgium last year, these were received by the consul or vice consul, who charged us the $82, watched us sign the application, chatted with our children, and then told us to come back in 3-5 days to pick up the new passport. In Egypt however, we were greeted by an Egyptian man (who spoke very good English), and when he had received everything, he gave us a ticket and told us to go pay the fee at a different counter and then come back. The fee was $85 as opposed to the $82 mentioned in the forms, and he had also added $1 per photocopy he had to make of our passports and the birth certificate, amounting to a total cost of $86. Although there was nobody ahead of us in line at the cashier, we had to wait for quite a while before we could pay. I had only brought $84, so I added the rest of the payment in EGP (a sign told us we could pay in either currency). “The system does not accept this” said the clerk with a frown, and told us we had to give him $2 instead of the extra pounds. "I don't have any more dollars" I explained. “But the system does not accept this” said the clerk again, adding "I need two more dollars, please." I looked at Courtney. “I'm not holding on to any dollars! I only brought $84. All I have after that is pounds. Can't you simply split up the cost?” I tried, but the system was unyielding, and we ended up having to pay most of the fee in EGP rather than the dollars we especially had withdrawn for this occasion. We went back to our clerk at the other end who accepted our receipts and told us to wait while the consul prepared our request. After a while our name was called, and we got to approach a different counter where a vice consul greeted us. She had us sign the application, but told us she could not process it until she had seen pictures of William’s physical development from the baby in his current passport, to the boy he is today. I had noticed a mentioning of this in the forms, but since it was indicated that this was only needed in case of a discrepancy, I had not thought of bringing such supporting documents --besides, we hadn’t needed anything of the sorts for August’s passport.

So here we are, having to go back to the embassy tomorrow to show the vice consul pictures of a birthday cake eating, chocolate covered William - 1 year old, 2 years old, 3 years old and 4 years old - and hopefully she will see the resemblance between the boy we have today, and the baby who's snugly resting on his triple chins in his soon-to-expire current passport.